


Ianto's Birthday Cake

by Gypsylady



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Recipes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gypsylady/pseuds/Gypsylady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto's twenty-fifth birthday. And he still isn't eating enough veg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ianto's Birthday Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper/Williams, Rhys Williams, Brenda Williams, any weevils, or a pterodactyl. And if I did I couldn't afford to keep them. Especially the pterodactyl. Although I bet she'd keep my house pest free.
> 
> This is a work of fiction. As if you couldn't guess...
> 
> Author's Note: "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." --George Bernard Shaw
> 
> Spoilers for "Exit Wounds," "Stolen Earth/Journey's End" and vaguely for "Fragments" and "Something Borrowed" but only insofar as I'm using things learned during the latter two episodes.

August 19 of the Year the Earth Was Stolen dawned a bit overcast in Cardiff, and a bit humid. Not that anyone deep in the bowels of the Torchwood Hub would have noticed. Gwen Williams noticed, of course, because she woke up above ground, comfortably cuddled in a cocoon of warm blankets and even warmer husband. Once awake, she had to face a cold reality in her life, a day-to-day struggle to keep her city, her country, and even her planet, safe from the horrors thrown out by the universe and the Rift through time and space that bisected Cardiff. In the past three months, a time-traveling mad man had tried to blow up the city while simultaneously (although Gwen suspected that word was wholly inappropriate) trying to imprison her boss, the immortal, amoral, and amazing Captain Jack Harkness, in a grave under pre-medieval Wales. That the mad man was in fact Jack’s younger brother hadn't made the circumstances any more or less dreadful. Then, not a month and a half later, a megalomaniacal alien and his army of metal-encased descendants had contrived to move the planet from its orbit into a far-off nebula, and attempted to use it and twenty-six other planets as a power source to destroy the universe itself, as well as some parallel universes that Gwen didn’t even want to think about. One wing, or at least member, of the alien army had attempted to wipe out everyone who was in the Hub at the time and only an esoteric and incomprehensible bit of time related computer software implemented by a colleague who had died a month and a half previously had saved them.

Gwen had taken it in stride. She’d had to. The alternative was to admit that her life had become a poorly written science fiction novel, and she didn’t care for science fiction.

When she arrived at her desk, the Hub was silent. In the past, her colleagues would have already been at their desks, making rude jokes to one another and calling for coffee or tea. With two of her colleagues dead and her boss not particularly comfortable underground still, she had lately found herself the first one in almost every morning. Today it was a good thing, as she was carrying a surprise.

A quarter hour after she’d come in, she heard the klaxon that announced the opening of the main door to the Hub. She looked up to see the aforementioned Captain Harkness of the many superlatives walking in, hand-in-hand with Ianto Jones, the only other survivor of the team Gwen had started working here with. She'd been a bit surprised to learn that he and Jack were lovers, but seeing how good they looked together she decided it was the most sensible relationship either of them had likely ever had.

Both men said their good mornings and Ianto veered off from Jack, after a rather delicate but still passionate kiss, to make the coffee. As soon as he was out of earshot, Gwen said, "I remembered what you said about him not eating enough vegetables, so I had Rhys' mum email me a special recipe."

Jack's left eyebrow rose slightly. "Brenda? She cooks?"

"Oh, she's marvelous at cakes. Her stews I can live without but her cakes are quite good."

At that moment, Ianto walked slowly back into the main office, carrying a tray with three mugs, all of them steaming. He distributed the coffee, taking his own and setting the tray on an empty chair. He leaned lightly back against a column, his shoulder brushing Jack in a surprisingly possessive gesture.

"Dare I ask why there is a cake carrier in the corner of the coffee room?"

Jack glared at Gwen, who covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide and sparkling. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I was going to hide that down in the autopsy bay before you got here but..."

"No, not the autopsy bay!" Jack protested. "Gwen, that's just gross!"

Ianto stifled a snort. "Is it what I think it is? Because if it is, I have to warn you, my mum was such a horrible baker I've refused homemade cakes since I was seven."

"You'll not refuse this cake, Ianto Jones!" Gwen announced. "I got this recipe from my mother-in-law and since it's her secret recipe I had to make so many promises I don't want to keep..."

He grinned, pushed off the column (somehow managing to brush against Jack's legs in the process, a move the Gwen simultaneously admired and blushed at) and went to retrieve the cake from what he considered his domain, the Hub coffee area. When he came back with the cake, he handed it to Gwen, who took off the cover to reveal a chocolate cake with 25 candles in it. Jack pulled an extra long candle from somewhere (not even Ianto wanted to know where he'd hidden it) and stuck it in the center of the cake, pronouncing it a good luck candle.

Then there was the ten minute search for a lighter. Jack refused to allow them to use any kind of alien tech to light the candles, so they finally took one of the candles down to the laboratory where it could be lit on a bunsen burner and then used to light the other candles.

When all three had sampled the cake, Ianto asked how Gwen had gotten it so moist without any greasy texture. She just smiled, claiming it to be her husband's mother's secret. She didn't know if Ianto would willingly eat courgettes, and didn't want to take a chance.

The Rift was silent that day. By noon, the cake was gone and the team was demonstrating how silly a sugar high could make them. At the end of the day, happy and calm for the first time in months, they agreed that Ianto's birthday was the best thing that had happened to them in a long, long time.

 

Brenda Williams' Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Wet ingredients:  
1 cup sugar  
1/2 cup maple syrup  
1/2 cup melted butter, 1 stick  
1/3 cup oil (I use mild flavored olive oil)  
3 eggs  
1/2 cup buttermilk  
1 tablespoon. vanilla  
2 cups shredded zucchini

Dry ingredients :  
1 1/2 cups flour  
1/2 cup cocoa powder  
1/2 teaspoon. salt  
1 teaspoon baking soda

 

Pre-heat oven 325 degrees Fahrenheit Grease 9x9” cake pan. In a large mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients. In another pan, combine the wet ingredients, then pour them over the dry. Mix until well combined, but do not over mix. Pour batter into greased pan. Bake 45-55 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out dry. Let cool a few minutes before pulling the cake out of the pan.


End file.
